Mogadishu

When we got the pictures back, she’d cut his head off. In the photo I’m holding hands with a headless man.

Talk about cheesy. That is cheese on toast. That whole story is mature cheddar on a piece of poor-little-me toast.

PETER. It’s not. It’s lovely.

Pause.

BECKY. If I close my eyes, I can see that woman so clearly. I can remember everything about her. Everything.

Pause.

But when I think of Dad, I can’t see him. It’s like he’s getting further and further away from me and the more I try, the more I try to imagine, the more I look at photos of him to try and remember, the stranger he looks.

BECKY. Did you ever see the old pier in Brighton?

PETER. Yeah.

BECKY. My dad was obsessed by it.

PETER. Was he?

BECKY. He was always going on about how it was deteriorating. He used to take a photo of it every week so he had a record of it falling down. What a weirdo.

PETER. I guess we all have our –

BECKY. I’ve got this photo of me and him standing in front of it. This really old woman took it. Dad asked her to and she was shaking because she was nervous in case she took it wrong. He bought her a cup of tea after and he kept making her laugh calling her ‘lady in red’ and ‘scarlet woman’ because she had this red coat on. He could be really cheesy sometimes. I mean really fucking cheesy.

Pause.

And then we walked her back to her house and when we got there, she bent right down and took my hand and said, ‘You’re very lucky to have such a wonderful daddy.’

Pause.